Chapter 1: Lights

Not yet finished, work in progress.

I was told in school that the first sense a person looses when they die is their sense of touch, and the last they lose is their sense of hearing. As I began to come to my senses, I could hear the water on the beach again, but something else too, something that sounded like someone was dragging something. But before I was able to get all my functions back, I blacked out again. I only hope it was as painless of a transition for Alice.

It would seem a lot had happened during the time I had been unconscious, as my new friend Sal would later tell me. The rift that pulled Alice, me, and our car into nothingness really pulled us through into an entirely different world. A world far more advanced than that of the one I had ever known. This new world contained few cities but they were massive. Millions of people within each set of walls from what I was told, with a variety of cultures all contained inside of these city-spires. These places contained menageries of people, from all over this new world, many of them looking normal enough, but some who were more unique. Sal told me, and I later on even got to meet some, that these people existed humans, Quadrians, just Quadys for short, Luposapiens, and Magdelenas. The Quadrians were named so because of their four arms, but they also tend to be very tall, on average seven feet tall, and very strong, capable of lifting a fully grown man with just one of their four arms. Luposapiens are these strange but often enough friendly people who seem human enough, but also carry some traits of wolves, such as having mostly canine teeth and a face that resembles the face of a wolf. Magdelenas are a very strange bunch though, they are mostly nomadic, but occasionally stop in at the city-spires to trade for supplies. The Magdelenas, or Mags, are a race that was created as the result of some sort of experiment gone wrong. They have to wear special suits and masks in order to survive in this planet's environment because they can not breath oxygen and have very weak immune systems. The masks they wear also makes their faces very hard to see, but after I awoke and was filled in on my situation I was told to try to avoid them if possible.

As for when I finally did wake up from my blackout, it wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows. The first thing I heard upon reawakening was Sal's rough voice, and the voice of a doctor. When i got my sense of touch and pain back, I wished I hadn't. The first thing I felt was this searing, and almost unbearable pain in my right arm. When I could finally see again, I had trouble processing why my arm hurt so badly, because I couldn't even see it. I found out it was gone, cut off when the rift closed as Alice and I fell through it. The doctor, his name was Barklay, asked me: "who are you?" I said "M-my name is F-floyd, w-where am I? A-and what happened to m-my arm?!" Barklay tried to calm me down and told me to relax, that I was going to be okay. Then I realized Alice wasn't with me. "Where is Alice? Where is my fiance?". "I'm sorry, who? You were the only one we found on that beach mister Floyd." Barklay said.

I tried to get up and that was when I got my first view of Sal. "Woah hey stay down, you aren't ready to move yet." he said in his rough, somewhat rumble-y voice. Sal was a Quady, but one of the more well tempered ones that I eventually met. "You can't just be getting up and trying to take off like that, you need to rest, and recover. And get that arm replaced too for that matter." Sal stated. I was confused, "What do you mean 'replaced'? How do you replace an arm?!" I told him, still freaking out at the missing appendage. Sal looked just as confused as I did when I asked him this. "Where are you from Floyd?" "C-california." Barklay's eyes widened a little bit, then he took Sal aside to talk to him where I couldn't hear.

After they had their little chat, Barklay came over to me and asked me "How did you get here?" I told him the story of how the rift had seemingly opened out of nowhere and pulled my fiance Alice, me, and our car through it and then wound up with me waking up here. "A rogue rift... that is troubling. We don't often have a problem with those, we have special terminals built around the city-spires that usually contain and control the rifts." He told me. "So how the hell did this one just go astray?" I asked Barklay, still confused but becoming more upset about my current predicament. "Like I said, this one must have been a rogue rift, they happen sometimes but they are quite rare and almost never manage to bring anything or anyone through. At least mostly intact." I began to worry even more. "So this same thing could have happened to Alice?" Barklay nodded. Sal decided to interject, asking Barklay if he could do him a favor. The two argued about this "favor" but didn't tell me what it was yet, just Sal telling me that he'll be owing Barklay, which will mean I'll be owing him to pay that off.

I blacked out again. This time when I awoke, I felt something strange. As soon as I came to my senses yet again, I saw that my missing right arm had indeed been replaced. With a cybernetic arm, that seemed to be built out of some really sturdy metals. I almost couldn't believe it when I first saw it, "Is this for real? This has to be some sort of dream." I said to Barklay. "Oh it's no dream, although I'm sure you wish it were. That is one of the best cybernetic transplant limbs that I had in stock, it was worth quite a bit, and now to pay it off I'd suggest helping out Sal a bit." Sal came back close to me again so I could see him in a better light, he had two cybernetic arms similar to mine but built to match his size. "They look a bit frightening at first, but you'll get used to them." he told me. "At least yours came off clean instead of how I lost mine. I got caught in an explosion while I was protesting the way that Sector Seventeen's, this city is Sector Seventeen since I doubt you know already, anyway I was protesting with a bunch of other Lower Half citizens about how Sector Seventeen's 'security force' The S.S.S.F. treated us. They're tyrannical and are more so just a bunch of bullies in fancy armor than real protection. Lower Half citizens were typically abused and beaten for the slightest things by the S.S.S.F., and so we protested in an effort to stand up for ourselves. We weren't expecting what happened next... We expected them to be dispersing us with smoke grenades or nerve gas, but instead as the first explosion went off, I could see that words would not solve this problem." Sal said.

"It was especially evident when I realized that I was on the ground with both my upper left and lower right arms riddled with shrapnel. I was barely able to get to shelter before the second grenade went off. By the time I had stopped my bleeding, the explosions stopped, and the smoke cleared, the S.S.S.F. were long gone. But the carnage wasn't." Sal began to cry as he reached this part in his story. "I-I'm sorry Floyd, you're n-new here and I'm just trying to w-warn you of the dangers, b-but that memory is still strong within me." Barklay consoled Sal, and once Sal had composed himself again, Barklay came over to me and told me to hold still. He pulled out some tools that looked similar to a flat-head screwdriver and a miniature monkey-wrench, then he popped open a small side panel on my new replacement arm. As soon as he began to twist that screwdriver I couldn't hold back a shriek of pain as Barklay began to tighten up connections within the arm and my shoulder. It felt even more painful than realizing that I had lost my right arm in the first place, and Barklay had to put a rag in my mouth to keep me from accidentally biting my own tongue and to give me something to bite down on to handle the pain better.

Once Barklay had finished, I was sweating and panting for air through the initial pain. "Okay, now try to move your fingers" he asked me. I tried. And was able to almost curl my fingers all the way, but that wasn't good enough. "I can't curl them all the way still, I can feel them there and I can move them somewhat but it's limited." So Barklay advised I'd better put that rag back in my mouth and be ready. He opened a small panel in the arm closer down to the hand and tinkered some more. The pain wasn't quite as horrendous as it had been the first time around, but it still hurt incredibly. When he had finished up and closed that panel he told me to try again, and I was able to have full range of motion with my fingers and hand. Then I tried to flex the arm itself, and it felt just fine, in fact it felt better than fine, this arm felt much stronger and much more capable than my old one had. Although I had lost my real right arm, I suppose this was an advantage now. "Can I sit up now?" I asked Barklay. "Go ahead if you think you can." So I tried to sit up, but I fell down the first time around, having realized that my legs were asleep and trying to move then sent pins and needles all throughout them. Second go, I struggled up and got myself sitting upright.

"Here." Sal said to me, as he handed me a small ball of metal that seemed to be etched with neon lights somehow. I grasped it and almost dropped it at first but kept my grip on it and looked it over as I held it. "What is this?" I asked him. "It's a ball made from a steel and brass mixture, lined with small lights for detail. Guess how much it weighs." "Three pounds?" "How about thirty pounds? Yeah that new arm of yours is plenty strong seeming isn't it?" Sal grinned at me. "No kidding, just how much stronger is this arm compared to my old one?" I asked him. "The typical ratio for humans is about three-to-one, so it's pretty strong, your body still has limits."  It was amazing, this new arm was incredibly strong, and even looked kind of badass too. I decided to finally get down to the important matter of the moment. "Well you got me patched up, and the sooner I repay you the sooner I'll be able to look for Alice. So what do you need of me?" Sal's face became serious the second I mentioned it, and I soon found out why.

"As you picked up from my story about my two robo-arms hopefully, peaceful protest won't put an end to our oppression under the triple S and F. We need to break our chains as a people and earn our freedom from our oppresers. Some of us, the Freedom Core being 'us', prefer to take the fight to them out in the streets, while others of us prefer more quiet methods." Sal nudged me lightly in emphasis. "But I'm sure you'd prefer to see your girl again, so let's start you off on some of the quiet stuff. After we get you introduced." This news rattled me a bit. I didn't want anything to do with this civil war. The look on my face must have given this away. Sales tried to convince me and I continued to rebuttle, but he just finished the argument by telling me that I'll see how bad it is once we get outside.

 

 

This scared me. I looked at my new arm, then at Sal. I took a deep breath and got myself up off the table I was laid out on. "Are you ready?" Sal asked me, as if I had a choice. "Let's go, the sooner I pay this off the sooner I can look for Alice."